"Making Technology Work For You," a technology column for the not-so-computer literate.
Like many people, I find it difficult to keep track of important appointments and events. When I work, I travel with a PDA on which I keep my calendar. I synchronize it with my home computer's calendar, which I use Microsoft Outlook to maintain. I also keep a copy of my calendar on my work computer. It sounds confusing – because it is. Unfortunately, up to this point I've been forced to keep track of my appointments this way in order to keep my sanity.
Microsoft Outlook (not to be confused with Outlook Express) is a powerful calendar, contact and e-mail program, but it can be daunting for new users. It's packed to the brim with all kinds of features, but if you don't plan on utilizing them, they tend to get in the way and make things confusing. Furthermore, Microsoft Outlook is part of the Microsoft Office suite, which is not cheap to purchase. You can buy Outlook by itself, but even then expect to spend over $100.
Fortunately, there is a decent calendar solution for the time-crunched computer user. It can be accessed from any machine with an Internet connection, and best of all, it's free! I just recently discovered how easy it is to use Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar), even though it's been available to use for several months.
Google requires you to create a Google Account to begin using Google Calendar, but it's a relatively painless process to sign up. Once you log in with your new account, you are provided with an attractive, clean interface where you can view your calendar appointments and events by day, week, or month. There's even an Agenda view where you can view your upcoming events in a list format.
Creating calendar events is straightforward. Clicking the "Create Event" link brings up a page where you can create one-time or repeating events that you can invite guests to, similar to the Meeting Request feature in Outlook.
Google Calendar also supports a "Quick Add" feature that is pleasantly intuitive: all you have to do is type in a natural language phrase like "Lunch with George at 12:35 PM on Saturday" and the event will be added exactly as you intended it to. If you leave Google Calendar up in your web browser, a nice reminder will pop up 10 minutes before your scheduled event occurs, which can also be customized to your liking.
Google Calendar allows you to have multiple calendars if you wish. For example, you could separate business and personal events into two calendars which can be displayed in any combination. Events on any calendars can be imported into Microsoft Outlook or any other calendar that supports the iCal format and vice versa.
Undoubtedly the most powerful feature of Google Calendar is the ability to share single events or whole calendars with others. By changing a simple setting, you can make an entire calendar available to the public. Only want a few close friends checking out your calendar? No problem, you can restrict viewing of your calendars to specific e-mail addresses. Only want to share a single event and not your whole calendar? That can be done too. Did I mention how simple it is to do all this?
Google Calendar is definitely worth checking out if you keep any type of electronic calendar. I've been juggling two computers and a PDA in a stressful calendar-synchronizing game, but no more. Now if I could only be on time to my events...